


Horrid Novels She Wrote

by DesertVixen



Category: Murder She Wrote
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Grady's Wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26182294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: A Regency AU of Murder She Wrote
Relationships: Grady Fletcher/Donna Mayberry, Jessica Fletcher & Grady Fletcher
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: Alternate Universe Exchange 2020





	Horrid Novels She Wrote

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rosencrantz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosencrantz/gifts).



Jessica Fletcher sat in her post-chaise, grateful to be escaping the Mayberry estate with her sanity intact. It had been a most eventful weekend, but at least she had seen her nephew Grady safely married, although it had been a near thing. Normally she wasn’t a fan of young couples running off to Gretna Green, but she would not have blamed Grady and Donna if they had eloped. 

She had brought them an heirloom from her family, a mirror her mother had given her when she had married Frank Fletcher, to bring them luck. Jessica could only imagine how things would have gone without the mirror. Still, it had been worth all of the troubles, including solving the murder of the Mayberrys' rather overbearing housekeeper, to watch Grady kiss his bride. 

Jessica loved him dearly, as much as she would have loved her very own son. But children had not been in the cards for her and Frank. Instead, they had raised Grady together after his parents – Frank’s brother and his wife – had been killed in a horrible carriage accident. They had filled the holes in each other’s lives – the little boy in need of parents, and the married couple who had so wanted to raise a family together. Sending him off to school had been heartbreaking for her, but she’d known it was necessary for his future. 

They were not a rich family, but they had enough to ensure Grady had a good start in life. Jessica had been working as a governess when she met young Frank Fletcher, a man of business, and after their marriage they had established a select academy for educating young ladies – a venture that not only enabled them to support themselves, but enabled Jessica to help some of her old friends who had not been so fortunate as to marry men of good character and respectable competencies. She did so enjoy helping people, and many people had observed that there was simply something about Mrs. Fletcher that made people pour out their troubles to her. Even some of their pupils had good cause to thank Mrs. Fletcher for more than their educations.

Then their world came crashing down, shortly after Grady had finished school and started working besides Frank. Frank had caught a chill while traveling for business, and the chill had turned into a fever that stole him from Jessica and Grady. She wondered sometimes how she would have survived losing Frank if she hadn’t had Grady. 

Grady had gone to London, where the Fletcher firm could be more profitably operated, and Jessica had closed the academy. Her heart simply hadn’t been in it after Frank was gone, and he had left enough that she could continue quite comfortably in their cozy cottage in their seaside village. Yet she had missed her pupils, and she had missed teaching. On those cold winter nights, when she couldn’t sleep because her grief wouldn’t leave her alone, she had taken to writing.

Somehow she had found herself writing a deliciously horrid novel, full of dark secrets and skeletons in closets, a plucky heroine who managed not to need her smelling salts too often and a brave hero who reminded her of a young Frank Fletcher. Writing it passed the time, and she had really intended them merely to entertain herself, had even woven in some details of people she knew, although dressed up in very different circumstances. It was precisely the sort of novel that Mrs. Fletcher, academy headmistress, would have frowned upon one of her students reading, but she found it truly diverting. She had shared the novel with Grady more to see him laugh and smile, but she would never have dreamed that he would take it to a publisher.

She would never have dreamed that anyone would actually want to buy her novel, but The Corpse Danced at Midnight had sold quite well under the name J.B. Fletcher. Other novels had followed it and sold well, but Jessica didn’t let the money change how she lived too much. She still enjoyed her sleepy little village, although traveling was entertaining as well. She could travel to Bath and was able to purchase a modest townhouse in London, and she loved to travel. It was so delightful to see old friends and how they had changed, even if it was distressing to find so many of her friends had issues – but helping them solve those issues made her feel useful and vital. 

It was also distressing how common murder was, and how often the answer rested on something so small that those investigating the murder didn’t know about, because it was so small. So many chance remarks and hidden secrets. Jessica had observed that no level of society was immune to having murders committed – why, the first murderer she had helped catch had actually been her first publisher. She still regretted it. Preston Giles had been the first man since Frank’s death to make her feel a spark again – but no amount of spark could convince her to let him get away with literal murder.

She had even solved a murder at Almacks, last season, while chaperoning the daughter of an old friend through her London Season. Lady Jersey owed her something of a debt, because Jessica had chosen not to divulge her secrets once it became clear they had no bearing in the murder – and her friend’s daughter had been advantageously married to a handsome young man with five thousand a year. She was afraid Fanny would want her help in launching the other four daughters – especially the youngest one, who was dreadfully fast.

Grady, finally, had found a young woman who was just right for him, without her help. He enjoyed the hustle and bustle of business in London, and had charmed the only daughter of one of the most successful men of finance in London. Mayberry’s counting houses were only slightly less well known than those of Jonathan Chawleigh, but what truly mattered was that Donna loved Grady. She had been forced to remind herself of that several times this weekend, but she believed that the young couple would be happy. Happy in spite of Donna’s parents, although she thought that they would come around, especially after their disappointment in the matter of Wilfred, the young man they had thought Donna should marry.

Perhaps hiring a new housekeeper would keep them too busy to interfere with the newlyweds, Jessica thought. She hoped so. She had offered Grady and Donna the use of the London townhouse, to give them a little independence to start their married life. It was, perhaps, a better gift than the mirror.

She hoped they were as happy she and Frank had been.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! I loved your prompt from the beginning, and decided to focus on the episode where Grady gets married, although this didn't quite get into details.


End file.
